


Small town secrets

by grimmie_me



Category: Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Gen, Haunted Houses, Murder, mentioned gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-11
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 17:41:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2118903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grimmie_me/pseuds/grimmie_me
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a norsekink prompt that can be found <a href="http://norsekink.livejournal.com/12950.html?thread=32327574#t32327574">here </a>in it's entirety.</p>
<p>The Odinssons move into the small town of Asgard.  Only Thor is seen regularly as his brother supposedly suffers from an auto-immune disease that keeps him inside at all times with his mother to take care of him.  The local teens sometimes hear screams and howling coming from the house, making them conclude that it's haunted.  One night three of them see the owners depart and decide to investigate the empty house.  Only..the house isn't quite empty because Loki stayed behind.  It's the night of the full moon after all, and Loki was born a werewolf...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small town secrets

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: characters belong to Marvel and not to me with the exception of Alex, Mandy and Bobby.
> 
> I haven't made real chapters because I'm lazy and some of them are just too short to be worthy of the name chapter. I hope you all enjoy nevertheless!

1.

Asgard was a sleepy little town about 50 miles away from the nearest city. It lay in a very slight valley between two out-runners from the Rocky's that couldn't possibly call themselves mountains. It was a sleepy place with no clubs or movie theaters or even big warehouses. The community was large when measured in acreage and small when one only took into account the amount of souls inhabiting it.

There's no news that travels around small towns like Asgard faster than having new arrivals. Especially if the inhabitants moved into their house on the outskirts of the town under the cover of darkness and the first thing people noticed was a car in a driveway that had been empty for the better part of a year after the former residents had died.

Helen, the woman who ran the only real estate office in town, had been very popular the next day, being offered all kinds of drinks and breakfast foods at the small diner in exchange for information. She had so far confirmed that the new inhabitants were a family and that they came from a few states over. Aside from the parents, there were two boys in the middle of their teen-years.

The oldest of those sons, by the name of Thor Odinsson, appeared the following monday at the school's office to collect his schedule and books. The youngest starred by being absent and indeed not even registered to start attending.

“So, how come you're here alone?” Fandral asked the newcomer on their way to the first class of the day. He and his posse had decided to claim Thor as their 'friend' before anyone else could. There was after all some status to be gained from being the ones to first have access to all the juicy stories behind the newest family in town.

“Loki has a condition.” Thor said. Fandral looked at him upon hearing the sadness creep into his voice. Thor was big and blond and his character had been sunny and open. Now though, he acted like he had to push the words out through a wall of pain. “He was born with a very weak immune system. He can't have contact with a lot of people, because the slightest germ could be lethal for him. We moved to the country because the air here is better for his lungs than all the contamination floating around in big cities.”

“That's sad.” Volstagg said. The red-haired teen was the only one of them that was nearly as tall as Thor, although his girth was far larger than any of them. Volstagg's parents owned the diner and so there was always something to eat whenever their son got hungry, which was quite often.

Thor gave him a grunt now in agreement. “Our whole lives are basically run around the fact. My mom stays at home to take care of him and my dad works a busy job to pay for all the medication, so he's gone early and back late. I'm afraid you won't see much of my family except for me.”

“That's fine.” Fandral said. Even one with a happy-go-lucky attitude such as he possessed could see a painful subject when it nearly bit him in the nose. He decided it would be his solemn job to spread this information around so no-one would bother Thor about it. If that made him more popular because he was the original source of such delectable gossip, there was really nothing he could do about it.

And so nobody bothered the Odinssons, although they all agreed it was quite sad that the whole family needed to be so stand offish. Thor, whenever someone encountered him in town as he walked back from or to school or the store, seemed like a really decent kid with fine manners and a smile for everyone. And poor Loki, never able to go out or have friends.

The general attitude among the school-going part of the town started to change a couple of weeks later, when three older teens had been hanging out partaking in illegal beers one night not far from the Odinsson house. A keening, sobbing sound suddenly rent the night air and the slightly befuddled teens jumped.

“Holy!” one guy exclaimed, jerking and spilling some beer over his companions, “Did you hear that?”

“Bobby, you ass.” the second boy said, “Now my parents will know I've been drinking!” He plucked at the sodden fabric of his sweater. “It's probably just some animal.”

The sound came again, like a person in extreme pain, shading towards a howl of sheer agony at the end.

“That ain't no animal.” Bobby insisted. “That sounds like someone's being murdered.”

“Murderers.” A girl said, squinting her gray eyes at their companion in disbelief, “In Asgard. You've had too much to drink already.”

“Fine!” Bobby said, “Don't believe me, but you'll be looking awfully stupid when I find the one in trouble and save them all by myself.” He pulled himself back to standing and began wandering off along the road in the direction the sound had come from. To his credit, he was wobbling only a little.

The boy and girl left behind exchanged a look and a sigh, levered themselves up as well and followed in a far steadier way. They had just caught up to their friend as the noise resounded a third time, a blend of pain and aggression. They could see light coming from the origin, windows lit with golden radience.

“It's the Odinsson house.” the girl said, pressing closer to one of the boys, a little scared despite herself.

“Relax, Mandy, they're probably just watching a horror movie with the sound up way too high.” the boy said, trying to be the voice of reason.

“Then why are only the screams that loud?” Bobby asked, making an excellent point, “You can't even hear any dramatic music.”

“Let's go, Alex.” the girl pleaded, “I don't like it here.”

The threesome jumped again when a door opened and someone stepped out into the night air. They all relaxed when it turned out to just be Thor who saw them standing in the lights of the road and waved. Alex waved back shakily, but it seemed Thor was just out for some night air before going to bed and they hurried back to their car and then home, the rest of their evening spent safely indoors.

In the bright light of the next morning, Alex, Bobby and Mandy could laugh about their experience. The beer and darkness paired with the sounds had made them overreact, but now that they were sober again, it seemed like nothing more than a great story.

When they saw Thor in the hall, Alex even said: “Hey man, that must have been some horror movie last night. We could hear the screams half a mile away.”

Their blood froze as Thor merely frowned in confusion and asked: “What screams?”

And so the legend of the haunted Odinsson house was born.

 

 

2.

“I'm home!” Thor called out, letting the front door close behind him. Though it looked to be a normal wooden one, that was just a paneling on a steel security door. He walked two steps and then opened the next door, this one made of see-through security glass.

The doors served dual purposes: it was part of the cover story of Loki having a problem with his immune system and partly there to keep him in should he find a way out of the basement on Those Nights. The family had learned the hard way that measures like these were not optional but rather a necessity.

“Hi, Thor.” Loki said as he came into the living room. He looked pale and slightly drawn, but that was fairly standard on the day after the full moon. Thor always teased him saying that his skin was trying to emulate the color of the thing that affected him so.

Thor ruffled his short, black hair as he passed him. “Hi, Loki. Feeling okay?”

“I'm fine.” his brother said, turning around so that his knees were pushing into the sofa's cushions and he could support his elbows on the top of it. “How was school?”

“Same old.” Thor responded as he allowed his mother to hug him and kiss his cheek. He opened the fridge and took out a can of coke for himself and a sports drink for his brother, taking both of them to the couch and handing one over. Loki took his normal position again, grimacing at the bottle, but taking a dutiful swig.

Thor patted his leg fondly before turning to his mother. “Some of the kids at school heard the noise last night.”

Frigga froze for a moment at the table where she was busy checking her art supplies. She pursed her mouth and sighed beneath her breath while Loki flinched and tried to curl up on himself. Thor didn't let him, keeping his hand firmly but gently on his brothers thigh, squeezing softly in reassurance. “I pretended I hadn't noticed anything. They'd been drinking anyway, so they might chalk it up to too much alcohol.”

Frigga nodded, somewhat reassured herself. “We've called to have the basement isolated, but it'll be two more months before they have time to do the job. We'll just have to figure something out in the meantime.” She stood and came over to the sofa, leaning over the back to hug her youngest. “Don't worry about it, baby, we'll think of something.”

Loki nodded, but he didn't seem too convinced. He was very aware of how much impact his 'illness' had on the other members of his family and even though they all loved him, he couldn't help but feel guilty for putting them through all that came with it.

The precise reason for Loki's transformations remained largely a mystery. The Odinssons all had their suspicions, even if the hard scientific evidence wasn't present. When Thor had been still a toddler and Frigga had been pregnant with Loki, they had lived in a more rural setting. A company had been fracking several miles from their house and one of the trucks carrying the chemicals necessary for the process had been in an accident and spilled some of its cargo near their house. Frigga had been home and the fumes she had breathed in before she was able to evacuate had made her ill for days afterwards.

Frigga recovered and that seemed to be the end of it because the gynecologist had assured them the baby appeared to be fine. Several months later she gave birth to a healthy little boy. Thor adored his younger brother and spent a lot of time around him. He ate well, slept well and generally did all the things babies do. Except that about once per month, he wailed and screamed and kicked nearly the entire night long and no-one could pacify him.

Doctors couldn't find a reason for this behavior and decided it was something he would grow out of with time. So the house adapted and on those nights, Thor slept in his parents' bed while Loki's screams echoed through the house even as Frigga and Odin tried to comfort him.

And then one night, shortly after Loki's second birthday, Loki's scream turned into a piercing howl and Frigga's scream had both Odin and a 5 year old Thor rushing to her aid. What they saw was still burned into Thor's memory 12 years later. Frigga was clutching her lower arm, which was streaked with blood and staring with wide, shocked eyes into Loki's bed. It had been one of those beds with wooden slats all around it so the child could not get out at night and injure itself by accident. But inside it was no child. Instead a wolfcub stood there high on it's paws, coat shaggy and bristling with fury, blood on it's muzzle and teeth sharp where they caught the light.

You could only see it was a cub because it's paws seemed too large for the rest of it's frame. It was growling ferociously and nearly half a meter high already. The only reason it hadn't leapt from the 'cage' it was in yet seemed to be that it hadn't looked up yet. Several of the slats showed wicked teethmarks and as they watched, the wolf made another launch, snapping at them to get them out of his way. Some of the wood creaked under the rough treatment, but the wolf's jaws didn't have sufficient force behind them to do worse.

Odin was the first one to snap out of the horror that had seized them all. He pulled Thor and Frigga from the room, closing the door behind them with the lock and then barricaded it by shoving the dresser that stood in the hall in front of it it.

“What happened?” he asked of Frigga while Thor had been sent running for the first aid kit.

“I don't know.” Frigga said, still shocked, “I was trying to calm him down when he just..writhed in my arms. I took my eyes off of him for a second to pick up his bottle and suddenly that thing was biting my arm and Loki was gone. I grabbed it by the neck and pulled it off me, throwing it into the bed. I don't know where it came from! I don't...” And with that she had started sobbing and trembling.

They had stayed in front of the room the entire night, Thor sleeping fitfully in his mother's lap despite all the noise that came from inside it. There were crashes and howling and scratching and several times something heavy thumped against the door. By the time morning came, they were all exhausted and the howls behind the door abruptly changed back to the wails of a distressed child.

They found Loki amidst the ruins of his and Thor's beds with blood on his mouth. He had changed on every full moon after that. Rather than taking him to a doctor for fear of experimentation, they had moved to a place where no-one knew them, fabricated the story of Loki's illness and reinforced the basement so Loki had a place to rage when the full moon came around again.

The city had been a good place to live: so many people that didn't care about knowing their neighbors or a child that never left the house. They had stayed hidden there for over ten years, until one fateful night, tragedy struck. Loki had had a growth spurt and that extra height had translated into extra strength in the now nearly full-grown wolf form. The chain that was clipped around the reinforced band that wrapped Loki's neck on those occasions had snapped. The door to the basement had not been enough to hold him inside and only luck had made sure he came upon the back door before he encountered any of his family members. The door had buckled under the wolf's assault and the huge animal had slipped into the city at night. Frigga arrived just in time to see him disappearing into the city proper. She had called them all together to search, but after several hours without any sign, they had been forced to accept they wouldn't find him.

Only half an hour after the moon had set again, Loki arrived at the back door, clothes rumpled. He was crying en his clothes, hands and face had been covered in blood. He had confessed between sobs that he had come across some young adults that had been walking back home from a bar or club. He had attacked them and killed all 4, then panicked when he had changed back.

They were lucky it was a winter-month and the sun wouldn't be up for another hour yet. Loki had dragged the corpses into an alley and that's where Odin and Thor picked them up. They drove several hours to dump them in an abandoned quarry while Frigga and Loki made sure nothing got left behind in the alley.

It was a very quiet dinner that evening. Loki refused to eat outright and had talked only when absolutely necessary for weeks afterwards. He had gone out with Odin to buy a far heavier chain and had insisted on a collar to match it.

Odin and Frigga had decided that staying in the city was too dangerous. They needed a place where woods where closer than people if there was another outbreak and they had found it in their new house in Asgard. They had said goodbye to the few people they really knew and moved several states to start over.

Loki had been doing better with the new security measures they had taken, but any mention of how his condition impacted the family negatively could drive him back into bouts of near-depression.

Thor decided to try and distract him with what always worked best: Loki's insatiable thirst for knowledge. “My teacher gave us a new mathproblem. Maybe you could give me a hand with it?”

Loki looked at him, green eyes underlined with dark circles because of his sleepless night. Thor expected he knew that his older brother didn't really need help with his homework, but he seemed grateful for the chance to be doing something all the same. His mother gave him a look filled with gratitude and went back to her own work as her boys broke out books and notepads.

They passed the hours until their father came back like that, sprawled over the sofa and later the floor and by the time they could hear the engine of the minivan Odin drove, there was a little smile on Loki's lips again.

 

 

3.

The story of the haunted Odinsson house continued to grow in sleepy Asgard. The adults merely thought the family was asocial to the point of rudeness, it was mostly their children that started to dare each other into spending the nights near the house. Most nights this was fine, but the howling had been heard twice more and several of the teens had been talking about going inside and finding out exactly what went on in there.

The most vocal about these plans were the original group that had discovered the noises. Alex, Bobby and Mandy had never been able to shake the creepy experience that night several months ago. They liked Thor just fine, but it was weird how he never mentioned his family voluntarily and when he had to, the answers were mono-syllabic and terse. No disease could make him avoid all questions, they figured, and so Thor must know something about the situation.

“Maybe his younger brother is possessed instead of ill.” Bobby suggested one evening. They were driving around in the falling autumn twilight, heading for their normal hanging-spot.

“That's absurd,” Alex said, “You read way too many comics, man.”

“Really?” Bobby asked, “You're okay with the idea that it's haunted, but won't believe possession by an evil spirit is possible?”

“Fine, he might be possessed, happy now?” Alex asked. He rolled his eyes as Bobby nodded smugly and was about to add something when Mandy moved suddenly in the back.

“Guys,” she said, “Look!”

Alex pulled over in the shelter of a tree, where they could see the house and driveway, but the people on it wouldn't notice them unless they knew where to look. The Odisson family was placing several bags in their car and locking up the house.

“Do you think they're moving out?” Mandy asked as they all sat looking out the front window of the car.

“No,” Alew said, “Not enough luggage.”

“Maybe it's a trip.” Bobby suggested, “A weekend off or something.”

Mandy squirmed forward a little. “Do you think Loki's already in the car?” she speculated, “I can't see anything through those tinted back windows.

“He must be,” Alex said, “No way they're going to leave him by himself if he's got such a disease. Anything could happen.”

“Guys!” Bobby suddenly said, “This is our chance!” When the other two just looked at him, he rolled his eyes and elaborated. “If they're gone, we can have a look inside without being caught.”

Mandy bit her lower lip and looked nervously at the car that left the driveway. “I don't know, Bobby, it's still a crime to enter someone's house uninvited.”

“He's right.” Alex said, “It's basically now or never.” And with that he opened his door and started walking towards the house. Bobby followed quickly and Mandy had to hurry to catch up to them before they turned into the driveway.

They tried the front door first, but it had been locked and the mechanism looked serious. The one on the backdoor looked much simpler and Alex was able to jimmy it open with a little help from Mandy's hairpins and a lot of patience. They went in, quiet despite the fact that no-one was home. The rooms looked disappointingly normal, the only indication that something was special about the family that lived there were the double doors at the entry.

“Probably an airlock to get rid of the germs.” Alex said and they all looked a little worried about the fact that they had probably brought a heap of the little bugs in with them.

“Hey,” Bobby said, a little while later, “I think this one leads to the basement.” He opened it with his friends behind him peering curiously (and perhaps a little anxiously) over his shoulders. A flight of steps led them down to another door, this one made of steel and looking like something a bank would use in their safe.

“What the hell?” Alex said. He pushed passed Bobby and opened the door. A kneeling figure looked up at them, rattling the heavy duty chain that anchored him to the wall. “What the hell?!” Alex repeated, while his other companions let out cries of shock.

 

 

4.

It was only early afternoon when Loki felt himself getting antsy. He couldn't stay still, like some kind of energy was collecting beneath his skin and he had to keep moving to keep from going crazy with it. She he paced in his room, trying to keep his footfalls quiet so as not to enervate his mother. Gods knew she went through enough for him already, no need to make her suffer through the preamble of his changes as well.

As the time passed, his skin started itching. When he was younger his mother had made him wear gloves for this part of the pre-transformation stage because once he had nearly scratched his skin into bloody ribbons trying to relieve the irritating feeling. Now he just took several deep breaths and pushed the feeling to the back of his mind. Years of experience made things a bit easier.

And years he had: his parents told him he had shifted each full moon from the time he was two. He couldn't remember those earliest shifts, the first real memory came when he was nearly 4. He remembered screaming as his skin ripped open and then nothing until the following morning when he was yelling for his mom, not understanding how he had wound up alone and tired and chained to a wall. He hadn't even had time for a second yell, Frigga had been in the room so quickly. She had taken off the collar and cradled him to her and he had fallen asleep in her arms.

Over time he had stopped yelling, seeing how distressed it made whoever had come to let him loose. He realized the necessity of it and just waited quietly when he woke up back in his own body. When he was 12, his parents had bought a collar he would be able to take off on his own, trusting his judgment to not take it off before he transformed.

Their system had worked beautifully until the growth spurt in his wolf form that no-one had counted on. Waking up with 4 mangled bodies around him and drenched in blood was without a doubt the most traumatic experience in his life. They had been forced to cover it up and move away. His father had needed to find another job and his brother had been pulled away from the few friends he had managed to make when he couldn't ever invite any of them over.

Loki had felt like the most terrible person on the world for months. He wouldn't ever be able to forget the sight of those young adults with staring eyes and torn open throats. He was a murderer and he had begged his parents to turn him in, to cut themselves loose from the whole situation. They had refused of course, though that made them accomplices to murder: they loved him too much to deliver him to people who would either kill him or experiment on him.

New measures had been taken: reinforced doors on the basement, back and front doors. A much sturdier chain that could keep in check a monster of his size and power. A collar with steel woven into it. It helped not only physically, but mentally as well. He knew there was no way he could break those things.

His phone buzzed with one of the alerts he had programmed in: five more hours to moonrise. He decided to go downstairs and get something to eat. It helped his recovery afterwards when he was well-fed going into the change. As he took the stairs down to the living room, he could hear his mother talking on the phone. Her voice was slightly lower and when she came into sight he could see that her eyes were red.

“No, you should go. She's family.” Frigga was now saying, “We haven't been there for her before, you can at least go now.” She noticed Loki standing at the base of the stairs and motioned him over, hugging him to her with one arm. “I'll pack,” she said into the phone, “it'll be ready for you as soon as you get home.”

The conversation was wrapped up and his mother put down the phone before pulling him tighter against her. “Your Aunt Bea died this morning.” Loki nodded: Aunt Bea was his father's sister. They had been close: his parents and Bea's family, before Loki had transformed the first time. Afterwards, Odin and Frigga had been forced to distance themselves from friends and even relatives. Another of the many ways in which Loki was a stone that dragged his family down.

Frigga shook him slightly, pulling him out of his morose thoughts with a concerned frown on her forehead. Loki fought to give her a tremulous smile to show he was alright.

“Your father wants to go to the funeral,” she said, “I need to go pack his bag. Do you want to help?”

“Don't you want to go?” Loki asked. Frigga was an only child and she had always treated her sister-in-law like she would have a sister of her own blood. They had talked on the phone regularly, even though there hadn't been any real visits.

His mother had looked torn. “But it's the full moon tonight.” she protested.

“You and Thor should go too.” Loki said, more determined now, “You'll regret not going later. I can do it myself, I'm old enough to stay behind.”

“You're sure?” Frigga said, still not sure about leaving her child alone during such a stressful time. “Maybe Thor and your father could go...”

“If you want to go, you should.” Loki said, “I can manage alone for one time. That's why we have all the security features. I won't be able to get out until I wake up again.”

His mother hesitated a moment more before nodding. “We'll be gone probably until Monday morning. Thor has been to the shop yesterday, so there's food aplenty. We'll just pack real quick and then go over everything for tonight.”

Loki nodded and they packed the suitcases, aided by Thor when he got back home from school. Then Loki checked the chains and collar that would keep him confined for any traces of strain. They did this as a routine twice each cycle of the moon: once when Loki's transformation was just behind them and once immediately preceding the night of the full moon. They stood up to inspection this time, allaying a part of the dread Loki always felt about what would happen if he encountered people in his wolf form again.

His parents and brother had left and Loki had immediately gone down the stair and to the basement, opening the large steel door and closing it behind him. The panel on the wall beeped in confirmation of its integrity. Light came on overhead, built into the ceiling and triggered by sensors that registered movement. There was no handle on the inside of the door: if Loki woke up again the next morning, he had to enter a code and then it would swing open on it's own. A wolf wasn't capable of entering a code, or even remembering it, so it was a safe solution.

He went to the back wall, picked up the collar from where it lay and put it on. It wasn't tight on his throat because it was fitted for his wolf-form. He then reached for the heavy chain and secured it to the collar. Then he sat down to wait. He'd have close to an hour before the moon rose and his skin itched worse then ever. Luckily the contractors had finally showed up to soundproof the room a week ago. They had bought the explanation of it being a panic room easily enough, though Odin had taken the precaution to remove the chains and collar before they stepped foot down there.

He didn't know how much time passed before the steel door suddenly opened. His first though was that his family had forgotten something, but as he looked up from where he had stapled his fingers in his lap, the person looking back at him wasn't someone he recognized. It was a teenager about Thor's age, with wild hair and a look of shock on his face.

As if the appearance of one stranger wasn't bad enough, two others came into the basement, the steel door swinging closed behind them. What were they doing here, how had they gotten in?

“What the hell?” the first guy repeated, looking from the chain to the collar around Loki's neck with wide eyes.

“Get out!” Loki shouted, “You shouldn't be here! Leave!”

“Dude!” the other boy said, “You're chained to the fucking wall. Did your parents do this?” he took a step closer, ignoring Loki's demands.

“Stay away from me.” the younger boy panted, scooting backwards until the wall pressed against his back and he could go no further. “You need to leave!”

“Don't worry,” the girl said, now walking towards him as well, “They're gone now. We'll get you out of here and somewhere safe.”

“No!” Loki protested, knocking her hand away as it reached for the closure of the collar. He could feel a growl building in the back of his throat and swallowed it down. “No, it's not safe for you to be here. You need to leave! I'll give you the code for the door...”

“We're not leaving without you.” the first boy said. “I get that you're scared, but we'll make sure they won't hurt you again, alright? I'm Alex, and these are Bobby and Mandy.”

“It's not me that's going to be hurt.” Loki interrupted any further introduction. A shiver ran up his spine and he gasped. He needed to get them out before the changing process started. The woman went for his collar again and this time Loki kicked at her in desperation. “No, I'll hurt you! Just leave, please!”

“Poor kid, thinks he's some kind of animal.” Alex said, with a pitying shake of his head. “Bobby, hold his hands, I'll hold his feet and then Mandy can untie him.”

Loki wanted to scream at them to leave him alone, but his words turned into a shriek of agony as the first ripple of his transformation went through his system. A blood-red haze came over his eyes and his consciousness fell into a black hole. Outside, the full moon rose over the horizon.

 

 

5.

Mandy, who had been reaching for the collar once more, screamed herself and backpedaled as the boy in front of her cried out in agony. “I didn't touch him!” she exclaimed, fearful her companions would think she had somehow injured the captured teen.

“Ow!” Bobby let out as sharp nails scratched over his arms. He let go of the struggling form in his arms, unnerved by the continuing shouts of pain. “I don't get it, what's wrong with him?”

“Do you think it's that immunity-disease he's got?” Mandy asked as Alex let go and jumped out of reach of the boy's wildly kicking feet.

“Whatever it is,” Alex said, “he needs help. We can't leave him here like that.” He stopped and they all clasped their hands to their ears as another scream ripped from Loki's throat. “We should call the cops.”

“We should call an ambulance.” Mandy corrected him, pointing at the boy whose skin was rippling like there were creatures squirming underneath his skin.

“I'm gonna throw up.” Bobby said weakly, walking backward to the door, only to find out he couldn't get it to open. “Uhm, guys,” he groaned, looking desperately for something resembling a handle, “I think we're locked in.”

Mandy screamed, causing Bobby to spin back around and press himself against the door with a heart-felt oath. Mandy and Alex joined him there mere seconds later, all three of them staring at the monster emerging from inside Loki Odinsson's frail form. The kid's screaming was now paired with a cracking sound and the wild swaying of the chain that kept him in place.

Pale skin split open along invisible seams, showing black, bristly fur with a slight wave to it. The kid fell forward onto what had been arms before and where now hugely powerful paws with sharp nails that scratched along the cement floor for purchase.

More cracking and then the skull changed its shape, becoming pointed while the eyes went from green to a blue so pale it seemed like they were glowing against the dark fur surrounding them. The jaws parted with a howl, showing some sharp, short teeth between longer, lethal canines.

The transformation was over in a matter of perhaps two minutes. The screaming and howling stopped, but that didn't much help the situation. The three teens were now faced with a huge wolf, shoulders fully as far from the ground as Bobby's own, who was the largest of them at 6 feet. It blew hot breath out a few times before sniffing the air and snapping it's head into their direction.

Mandy gave a scream and started pounding on the door, begging for someone to let them out, even though the rational part of her knew that they were the only ones present. The wolf growled deep in it's chest, nostrils widening and jumped towards them. Their only saving grace was the collar and the chain they had tried to take of a few moments earlier. The sound of the chain pulling taught echoed like a small explosion in the sealed room.

Mandy was by now sobbing and trying to get as far away from the monster on the other side of the room. The wolf was getting very frustrated, pulling at the chain and howling. It made several more sallies at them, obviously trying to pull the chain from the wall. Both chain and collar seemed to hold for now, but the question was which would give in first: several hundred pounds of wolf or the suddenly far less sturdy-looking chain.

Alex and Bobby were looking around for anything they could use as cover or as a weapon. Their search came up empty, the room bare but for them and a wolf whose lunges carried the claws on his forepaws to within three feet of where they were pressed against the walls.

The lunging seemed to go on forever: the wolf far too agitated and aggressive to give up. Each time the chain snapped to it's full length, the would-be liberators had a split-second where they were sure that it would break apart and the teeth and claws would rip into them, pulling them apart into bloody little pieces.

The teens stood with their backs pressed against the unassailable steel door panting in fear and hysteria. Mandy was still crying while Bobby's breath came dangerously close to hyperventilating. Alex tried to hold off his own panic by going through their options. They had no weapons, so they couldn't even try to defeat the wolf, there were no other exits than the steel door at their backs. He could try every possible combination on the keypad, but that would take hours.

The wolf howled and made an even more impressive attempt to get at them, causing Mandy to scream and press herself against Alex. They could both feel the heat of the thing's breath and the saliva that sprayed from it's mouth, sharp teeth gnashing for too close for comfort.

Yet despite the horror facing him, Alex felt a little ray of hope: Mandy's position had pressed the cellphone in his pants firmly against his leg, reminding him of its presence. He shoved a hand into his pocket and pulled it out, dialing his home number with two presses of his thumb. His hand trembled as he pressed the device to his ear and he had to push his finger into the other ear to make out anything from the line over the noise of the frustrated howling.

The only thing he heard was the dial tone being cut off. Holding the thing in front of him showed him why: the basement had to be armed concrete, since it blocked the signal entirely: the words 'no reception' showed in red on the screen. In a fit of anger and panic, he threw the phone away, only to have it snatched out of the air by the jaws of a feral predator. One single crunch from those teeth was all it took before the small rectangle shattered into pieces.

The wolf tossed its head, shattering pieces everywhere before lunging again. The claws made an eerie sound as they scratched over the concrete in an attempt to propel the huge body forward, much like nails over a chalkboard. It was hopeless, Alex realized, they would never get out of there and it was only a matter of time before the chain gave under the relentless assault of the wolf's muscles. He gave a sob, wrapped his arms around Mandy and let his knees buckle so that they slid down along the door to end in a crumpled heap on the ground.

The next hours passed in a daze: flashes of teeth, the scent of a large predator, hot breath steaming in the colder basement, the occasional sob, the clinking sound of the chain as it moved. At one point the wolf had turned and started scratching at the wall where the chain was anchored, trying to dig it out.

But the chain held and the mooring held and the time passed with them huddled on the floor, Bobby joining them after perhaps an hour of franticly but futilely pushing in numbers on the keypad. They just sat there numbly, their bodies incapable of keeping up the high-adrenaline levels for hours on end. If the beast did break free, they might have even welcomed it, grateful for any sort of end to their current predicament.

And then the wolf twisted in the air mid-attack, howling and shuddering. It seemed to shrink before their eyes, human skin and clothes coming back from wherever to cover the dangerous animal. The bones snapped back into the form of a teen-aged boy. A moment later, the dark haired youth from before lay unconscious on his back, collar loose around a throat that strangely didn't show any sighs from being restrained by it. The three didn't move, scared that they were just imagining things and that the second they came in range, Loki would change back into a wolf and bite their heads off.

A moan sounded from the boy, eyes blinking open and coming to focus on the ceiling. He moved to sit up and then caught a glimpse of the three scared teens huddled against the door. His eyes went wide and his face turned even paler than before. “Fuck.” he breathed, and for a few moments, neither of them could take their eyes off each other.

 

6.

Loki blinked slowly back into consciousness. His limbs felt heavy and more exhausted than was normal after a full moon and his mind was sluggish in picking the threads of his thoughts back up. He groaned and pushed himself into a seated position, rolling his shoulders. His body always felt a little weird to him after he regained his usual form.

It would be nearly morning outside and he longed for breakfast and fresh air, but the moment he turned towards the door he froze.

There were people there, and they weren't his family.

The fog that always lay over his last moments as a human being lifted and he remembered shouting at the older kids to get out. Apparently he had passed out before he could give them the instructions for the door. Oh Gods, they were so screwed.

They didn't look good either: nearly as pale as Loki and shaking softly where they sat huddled together. He could only imagine what they had gone through, trapped with a monster trying to rip them to pieces. Loki swallowed and looked away, fingers rapidly loosening the fastenings of the collar and letting it drop to the floor. He stood up, swaying a little from the stiffness of his joints and the exhaustion of a night of frustrated struggling.

The three flinched further back as he walked towards them. Loki wasn't sure what to do. If they attacked him in their panic, they would surely win: when not a wolf, Loki wasn't very physically endowed. He was also alone and two years their junior. He stopped mid-way between the cowering people and the back wall, trying to figure out his next move.

They had seen what he could become, what a freak he truly was. No auto-immune disease turned you into a wolf. He wasn't normal. Worse: he was a danger to the entire community.

He needed to get out, needed time to calm himself and think about it rationally. He should...he should call his parents. They would know what to do, they always knew what to do in situations like these. But he couldn't let them go in the meantime. He had to keep them here until he knew what to do about the entire mess.

He took a determined step forward, projecting as much aggressiveness as he knew how to. To his relief it worked: the teens skittered away from him, keeping their backs to the wall and scooting along it to keep space between them. Loki quickly inputted the code, shielding his movements with his free hand. The locked sprung open and Loki hurried through it, pushing it closed from the other side before bolting up the stairs as fast as his shaky legs would carry him.

His stomach gave a hungry growl, signaling just how much energy he had burned with trying to get at the innocent people now trapped in the basement. He ignored it ruthlessly, heading instead for the phone and speed-dialing his mother's cell with trembling fingers. The beeps that told him the call had connected and waited for his mother to pick up sounded loud in his still-sensitive ears. Nearly as loud as the beating of his heart.

“Loki?” Frigga's voice came over the line, “Is everything alright, sweetheart?”

“N-no.” he managed to get out, “Mom, some people broke into the house and found the basement.”

There was a sharp intake of breath and then he heard his mother yell for his father. “I'm going to put you on speaker.” Another beep and then he could hear other sounds from what he thought was a hotel room.

“Loki?” his father's voice came next. “Take a deep breath and tell us what happened.” He could hear Thor being shushed by his mother in the background and breathed a little easier. His family could figure it out, they always did.

“I was in the basement waiting for the moonrise and then the door opened and three kids about Thor's age came in. I guess they came to the wrong conclusion because they wanted to take off the collar. I yelled at them to get out but they wouldn't listen and...” he checked the near-rambling his story had turned into and finished with a choked “..and then I changed.”

“Loki, are they hurt?” his mother's voice, dreading the answer but needing to know too.

“No,” he reassured her quickly, “the collar and the chain held. But they're very, very scared.”

“I can imagine.” his mother said, but she sounded relieved more than sympathetic to the plight of the burglars. “We can use that. Where are they now?”

“Still in the basement.” Loki admitted. He knew the necessity of keeping himself locked up on those nights, but to lock up others against their will was another story entirely.

“Alright,” Odin said, “Loki, this is what we are going to do. You're going to take the chain and the collar out of the basement and hide them in the shed. Then you're going to call the police and tell them you have some burglar's trapped in our panic room. Hopefully the police will think they used something and had a bad trip there.”

“But...” Loki started, only to be interrupted by his mother.

“Sweetheart, I know you don't like to get other people in trouble, but they did break into the house. They're still minors, right, so they'll get off rather lightly and have learned an important lesson in the meantime. Besides: no cop is going to believe a story about a sick child turning into a wolf and trying to eat them.”

“The funeral is in an hour. I'll leave my phone on so you can reach me if it's necessary.” his father said, “We'll leave for home immediately afterward. That should have us home by 7 or 8 in the evening.”

“Okay,” Loki agreed, feeling another wave of guilt about having to interrupt his parent's plans for the weekend.

“It's not your fault, Loki.” his father stressed. “You did very well making sure you couldn't attack them. They owe you their lives.”

Loki breathed deeply a couple of times. It was alright, he hadn't done anything wrong. He felt a little silly now for thinking his parents would shout at him, when they had never done anything of the sort.

“Okay, I'll...I'll go and get the chain and then I'll call the cops.”

“Alright.” his father said, “Remember you can always call us if you need to. We'll check in as soon as the funeral is over.”

“Yeah.” Loki said, somewhat calmer. “Thanks dad, thanks mom.”

“Be careful, sweetie.” Frigga said. “We love you.”

“Love you too.” Loki said before he hung up.

He then took a couple of deep breaths and went back to the basement. He slipped inside, locking the door behind him again and found he shouldn't have worried. The teens were exhausted from being up the entire night and all the stress they had weathered. They remained huddled together to the side while Loki unhooked the chain and collar, slinging them over his shoulder to make carrying them easier. He then got back out and went outside to hide them, making sure to go out the window and use the tile path so he didn't leave any tracks in the grass or dirt.

When he got back inside he called 911, not having to fake the shaking of his voice since he actually was nervous, just not about the people in his basement. The emergency responder tried to keep him calm, stating that a police car would be sent straight away. Loki remembered just in time to tell them about his 'illness' and the woman promised to relay the information.

The cruiser arrived only ten minutes later, coming from the local precinct as they did. The two officers got out and patiently waited while Loki let them through the airlock (which was perfectly functional when it needed to be). He explained the situation as having come down from his room to see the light blinking that the panic room was in use and then going down to check that the system hadn't malfunctioned where he'd come upon his three 'guests'. He'd slammed the door back closed without further questions and had called his parents in a panic, who told him to call the police. So he had.

The soldiers, with a little help from the jimmied lock on the back-door and Loki's assertion that some things had been moved around, took his story hook, line and sinker. They documented the damage to the door and the traces the teens had left walking around in and outside the house before they rounded up the still scared burglar wannabes. One of them marched them to the cruiser while the other helped Loki fill in the paperwork he needed to press charges.

“Will you be alright here on your own?” the officer asked before leaving.

“My parents are coming back tonight.” Loki said, “And I have the number for my doctor, should they have brought in something.”

The man smiled at him. “You're a brave kid, going down there by yourself.”

Loki shrugged uncomfortably. “I didn't really think there would be anyone down there.” he explained, which was true enough in a sense. He squirmed a little, but decided to ask anyway. “What's going to happen to them?”

“We'll question them at the station.” the officer said. “They were telling some tall tale about being trapped in there with a wolf. They probably used or had some panic attack when they realized they couldn't get out anymore. Then it's for a judge to set their punishment. We'll keep you posted.” And he too left with a tip of his hat. Loki breathed a sigh of relief and crashed on the sofa where he fell asleep in a matter of seconds.

 

 

7.

The story went around Asgard as fast as the news of new residents had several months before. The shops and bars and diners where full of people who all had their own opinion about the happenings. Most of them blamed drugs or bad parenting, lamenting that teens from their own town could break into a house where they knew a very ill child lived.

On Monday, the school was abuzz with it and Thor felt all those curious eyes on him. Fandral and his friends showed unprecedented tact by not grilling him for information even though Thor thought they must be bursting with curiosity.

Hogun was the only to ask a question and that purely to inform about Loki's health.

“He's fine.” Thor said, though the relief from his voice had a slightly different reason than his friends thought. “Luckily there wasn't anything introduced into his environment that he couldn't handle. We disinfected everything afterwards just to be certain,” _and to destroy any lasting traces from what had really happened in the basement_ “but we seem to have avoided worse.”

“Good,” Hogun grunted and that was that.

The next wave of news came when Bobby, Alex and Mandy had appeared before court. Their story about Loki turning into a giant wolf was met with ridicule and anger, that they would try to save themselves by impugning their victim. The judge was harsh, considering that they could have posed a health risk on top of breaking and entering. Alcohol had been found in their car, along with a small bag of weed. They were all three of them sentenced to three months of detention and a further 5 months of probation.

Their parents went a step further and forced them to call the Odinsson house to apologize for all the trouble they had caused.

On the whole, the incident proved to be a good thing for the Odinsson family. The story about the wolf died a quick and silent death, attributed to a combination of weed and panic. The more curious of the town's teens stowed the notion of going anywhere near the 'haunted' house after dark and though they were still seen as stand offish, people didn't see anything weird about them anymore. The howling and screaming wasn't heard any more and many now refused to believe it had ever occurred.

Life in Asgard went on as it ever had and the werewolf that lived in their midst could sleep in peace once more.


End file.
